Noumea with Hugh's Mum & Dad & the Woodman's
19 October 2012 | Noumea, New Caledonia
Hugh
In Noumea we met up with my Mum and Dad and their longtime friends Pip and Pam Woodman. I've known Pip and Pam all my life and it was great to see them again. The four chartered a Hanse 400 called Draken from Noumea and we had ten days to cruise alongside them in the southern lagoon (Dad and Pip are then staying on with us to do the last legs to Coffs Harbour and Pittwater).
What followed was a most hilarious week as Mike and I baby-sat the "oldies". We'd planned an itinerary that would take us to the famous Ilot Amedee lighthouse, the picturesque "5 Iles" and of course the Ile des Pins with a few stops in between. It was good sailing with a spirited upwind run to Ile des Pins and a fast downwind run back to Noumea. Unfortunately the weather wasn't perfect for us, see above photo, but we all had a wonderful time, each night taking turns to host drinks and BBQ's on board and sometimes just sheltering from wind and rain in the saloon and playing cards.
While on Ilot Amedee we were amazed to see so many sea snakes slithering around, Mum and Pam let out yelps a few times when one crossed their path or swam over inquisitively. I've been playing with the sea snakes a lot since Niue as they're not aggressive or scared by humans but after hearing a few stories of bitings I've been a little more respectful of them. Pip got a surprise on Ilot Matre when he stood up and discovered one had been nesting right under him!
Iles des Pins was breathtakingly beautiful, we anchored in bays full of turtles and we even saw a dugon one afternoon. In the small capital of Vao we met the women's president and general island organiser, a well-travelled Kunie, Marie-Jeanne, who, in addition to her own native language, speaks English, French, Italian, Czech and Polish! Marie-Jeanne organised a great tour of the island for us with Rafael who drove us around in his 4WD for the day.
Now we're all back in Noumea and Mum and Pam fly out tomorrow, the weather incredibly looked spot on to leave today as we'd planned but as of this yesterday a big southerly is being forecast around Coffs Harbour so we're most likely going to delay our departure almost a week! We'll write again when the window clears and let you all know when we're heading off for Oz :)